


Instances

by ern-jaeger (kogamis)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23434000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kogamis/pseuds/ern-jaeger
Summary: Death is a fragile experience.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Instances

**Author's Note:**

> Written to the song Window by The Album Leaf, so I might recommend listening to it as background music for the read.
> 
> WC: 2050  
> Rating: T

Everything always happens in instances. Blinks of an eye shut out the smallest of moments, be they tedious nothings or crucial wonders that can go unseen by one yet etched into perfect memory by another. Let the mind wander and even the slightest miscalculation can offset everything.

Just like that, she falls. One instant she is soaring, eyes seeking out her path and hands acting accordingly. In the next, one false movement of her wrist sends her crashing. She counts—more like remembers—the impact of her body crushing into something a handful of times, momentum catching up to her like a clap on the back knocks the wind out one's lungs.

When she finally stops moving, resting on something wet, she can't breathe. There is a bell chiming, echoing in monotone melody through the trees and in between branches and rustling the pines until it slowly fades, coming to a soft rest somewhere in the back of her mind.

Everything is dark, for a long time. Maybe it's only seconds. She can't tell, now that everything is spinning and there is dirt in her eyes. Thin fingers dig half-moons into the dirt and she tries to raise herself onto her arms.

Get up, she says. It's not safe on the ground. Get up, back to safety, back to the group.

Her brain is screaming directions that her body does not comprehend. She struggles to see in front of her, and she's pretty sure there is blood in her mouth.

One instant, everything is foggy and gray, like she's halfway into a dream she never wants to leave. It ends in a fraction of time, when an arm gives out beneath a dislocated shoulder and half of her body is on fire.

She falls onto her side, clutching at the source of the pain. Everything is in focus now, too focused. The bell has returned with an awful ring and this time she can't hear anything else above it. The seconds crawl by where she lays, stunned and breathless, on her injury, until common sense kicks in and she uses a leg to push herself onto her back.

Finally her throat cries out, with both relief and anguish. Each second that passes the groan intensifies along with the pain. Quickly she realizes that it's not just her shoulder that hurts, it's the entire right side of her body. She wonders just how many bones are broken. She wonders what had happened in that single second that threw her off course and sent her to a heap on the ground.

Time only exists in fractions now. She doesn't know how long she's been laying there, but the sky is considerably darker than it was just moments ago. She can no longer see a darkening blue dotting the green canopy; it's morphed into an orange that runs along with a dancing black, the color of her bangs that lie on her face, caked with sweat.

By that point, she's also realized that she is bleeding from her side. Medical training insists that she turn over to apply pressure, but fear keeps her paralyzed on her back. She knows it's too much to handle; maybe somebody will find her soon. She wasn't too far off from the group, so her absence was surely noticed by now and they were looking for her.

It wouldn't be much longer.

The sky grows darker too quickly for her comfort, and she can feel the temperature dropping. Her breath comes out in little clouds, barely visible and gone too quickly for her to trace the shapes with flickering eyes. Short instances too quick to remember.

Everything happens too fast. There is too much to see, too much beauty to miss and become forgotten, lost in the cycle of life.

The ringing has stopped awhile ago, but she doesn't notice until she hears the crackling of boots over twigs and rubble. Sounds of a fire burning corpses into ashes, slow yet steady, strong and warm like the sound of a voice calling her name.

"Mikasa," he says, bringing tears to her eyes. Relief spreads through her veins, through her nerves and her heart and into the places on her body that have become numb yet still cry with agony.

He drops to his knees, staining the white fabric with scarlet mud. The heavy breaths from his lungs keep a different pace from hers—long, drawn, steady and strong; hers are quick and feeble, so she focuses on matching his.

"You're bleeding," he says. Her throat is too cold and too dry for speech, so she nods instead. "Why don't you stop it?" She has no answer. She has been waiting for help and she can't move. Her nerves are dead and don't respond while they thrive with anguish to keep her conscious.

His hand, precautious and slow, grabs a hold of her waist and tugs gently. Her breathing fluctuates in fear, but she lets him move her body and tries to suppress her panic. She knows this is best for her injury, her best chance of survival.

He is wearing his harness but his gear is missing. Somewhere beyond the light must be the horse, awaiting its rider and injured cargo. She wonders how he found her lying here, when it will be safe to move her body, when the others will come.

On her side, despite the extreme discomfort, she finds the strength to speak.

"Where were you?" she stutters in between breaths, wetting her lips with a dry tongue. It's harder to meet his eyes from this angle, but the sadness he looks down at her with is unmistakable.

He doesn't answer her. Instead his hand leaves her waist to brush through her matted hair, forming a half-smile in apology. Sorry he wasn't there. Sorry it took him so long. Sorry he couldn't help her sooner.

"Where are the others?" she says, more in a whisper than anything.

"Looking for you," he answers calmly. While he pets her hair, the other hand takes a hold of her limp one, lying lifelessly on the ground. She wonders if it will ever move again. She can't feel anything of his grip except for the heat of his skin, and even then she's pretty sure it's imaginary.

She's cold, and he can tell. He's only wearing a shirt, no cloak, so there's nothing he can offer her. She already has his token wrapped around her neck. He settles for adjusting it, tightening it over her skin and pulling it up over her chin the way she likes to do when she's alone.

"Eren," she says, testing out the sound of his name. It brings her comfort.

"Mikasa," is his reply, sturdy and strong like she remembers him always being, but hidden within that is brokenness. He tries to hide it from her, tries to keep her heart as warm as possible until it's too cold to beat.

She can see it, lining his eyes, crinkling in his brows, clenching in his jaw. The light is fading, a light he doesn't carry with him. Suddenly her breathing is even, and her chest doesn't feel so heavy.

"Will you cry?" she asks, whispering to the night. He shakes his head.

"I already have," he says. Strong, gentle, heavy, broken. Like he's missing something crucial and cannot figure it out, despite the answer lying in front of him and dying. "Will you?"

The tables turn in an instant, and suddenly she's the one kneeling before a broken body that cannot heal itself. It's a fleeting memory, lurking on the darker, colder side of her mind. She shuts her eyes in desperation, cutting off the thought before it grows into something she can't ignore.

"I can't," she pants, her lungs working faster as she becomes colder.

"Then what are you waiting for?" he asks, like he's begging. She feels the faintest of brushes on her cheek all the way down to her jaw, coupled with the barely-there pressure of lips on her temple. Then the warmth of his hand disappears. Her eyes open, and the light is nowhere to be seen.

That's right. She remembers. He couldn't have been there. He was gone.

The floodgates of panic open and she is scrambling to her feet, nerves screaming at her like piercing blades. What is she waiting for? She has to get off the ground. It's unsafe. She is going to die.

She makes three steps before crumbling to her knees. He would want her to be safe. He would want her to get to safety, to survive. She has to fight through the pain to survive. He taught her that long ago.

The ground begins to thump with the unmistakable footsteps of a giant. His words repeat in her mind over and over and she refuses to forget them or the person who spoke them. She lets go of her shoulder and lets it flop, all Hell breaking loose in her body but she doesn't care. Her hand flashes to her weapon, damp eyes scavenging the pitch canopy until she finds a branch to target. In seconds her feet leave the ground and she is left dangling in the air.

Now she remembers why she fell.

She sees him in every place she can still see color. His eyes watch her from the ferns and the leaves, and he smiles down from the bright crescent that rests in ink. His heart laces around her neck, keeping her close and unforgotten.

Her hand works by itself, instinct taking over while she dreams. In some corner of abandoned thought she is tying a knot around the branch she hangs from, teeth working in unison with her single arm. Everything else is in reverse, taking her back through memories behind her eyes and controlling her senses, returning her to a time when she didn't have the scarf that kept her so grounded.

Back then, everything happened in instances, too quick for her to keep up with. One minute she is spending a quiet afternoon with her parents, and the next she is an orphan watching a little boy getting strangled with a knife in her hands and she is trembling and she is cold and she is alone.

But he is there. He's alive in her dreams, smiling and crying and shouting and swearing and laughing and picking fights and persevering and cheering her on when she falters, holding her at night when she finds his lack of presence unbearable.

He is there in the sunlight that beats down on the grass they used to sit on, warming her hair like a hand running through it countless times, in comforting gestures and scolds to cut it.

He is there in the sound of her name, an echoic memory. In the folds of her clothes, the smaller ones that used to belong to him. He's the hands she uses to guide a horse, to travel three-dimensionally, to eat, to work, to comfort a friend. He's the shadows that stand guard in the night, the dancing glow in lanterns to light her path.

Even in the dark, he's burning in her heart, like a charcoal kept aflame by her will. It's how her eyes make sure her hand doesn't make the wrong move; perhaps it's his undiluted guidance keeping her alive for the moment.

And like every other moment, this one comes to an end, quickly and without patience, no time to mourn and reminisce.

It starts and ends with her grip on the fabric, pulling herself up and getting pulled away by merciless, giant fingers wrapped around her legs. In his words she still struggles to live, kicking and thrashing and reaching for her lifeline.

And just like the cycle of life dictates, her fingers slip. She is cruelly ripped from her last tie to him, but there is beauty in the red as it loosens, fluttering in the wind beyond the reaches of her fingers.

It's the same as the boy who removed it from his neck and wrapped it around her own. In one instant they are together, fighting for survival and warmth in each other, and the next they are gone, like whispers in the wind and crackling fires rising to burn the dead.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on FFnet in May 2015, but since I plan to mainly post my work on Ao3 in the future, I wanted to upload this here as well as it's one of my favorite works to date, flaws and all. Unfortunately, don't expect any more SNK-related work from me after this. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
